Raser’s Edge:  Reactionary reactions and logical fallacies

One recent Sunday on Meet the Press, Chuck Todd asked Kellyanne Conway about the White House position on the Russian collusion investigation.   She replied something like, “Why are you asking that?  What you should really be focusing on are the Hillary Clinton emails.”  Of course, one has nothing to do with the other and the Hillary investigation was exhaustive and concluded quite some time ago.

 What Conway used is a logical fallacy called “misdirection” or sometimes,  a “red herring.”  Kellyanne is a master of that technique.  She shifted the attention from the real subject under discussion—Russian collusion in the Trump election—to something old, irrelevant and totally unrelated but still a visceral topic with Trump’s base supporters.

This happens a lot with my blogs and facebook posts.   One facebook friend in particular, no matter what the subject is, he will bring up Hillary.  I posted a recent blog suggesting the Republican tax bill was open to many interpretations and that you could find a tax calculator on line and try to figure out what effect the new tax law would have on you.

   

His reaction to my post was:  “Right, Bill, and all the polls said the Hillarysaurus would win. How did that work out?”  (Note the cutesy way he refers to Hillary as “Hillarysaurus.”)

The only reference I made to polls in my post was: “Rather than just look at the polls which say as many as 65 percent of Americans think the Republican bill stinks, I thought I would do some research on what the bill would actually do for me.”   So my only reference to polls was a suggestion to IGNORE them and do some real research with the tax calculators available on line.  Rather than address my basic premise--research the bill’s consequences--he chose to address the irrelevant (but true) observation that the polls showed the bill is unfavorable to a majority of the public.

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Here’s another Republican logical fallacy reaction to my blogs which happens often.  If I am critical of Trump the response is:  There is something wrong with you.  A facebook friend’s recent post called for throwing the bums out of Washington referring to congressional politicians in general.  I suggested we start with Trump.  I was immediately accused of having an “obsession” with Trump and that I am “childish.”  The conclusion that I am “childish” is an example of the logical fallacy called “ad hominem”-- if you don’t have a good counter argument or you don’t like your opponent’s viewpoint, you attack the person.

 

Interestingly, if I post things critical of Trump, my Republican facebook friends do not hesitate to go on the attack, e.g. I’m “childish.”  But, if I share a column by an arch conservative pundit such as the recent one by George Will stating Trump is the worst American president ever do my Republican facebook friends respond that George Will is obsessively childish?   No, of course not.  In this case, another logical fallacy applies.  It’s called “avoiding the issue.”